


Uncovered Relics of a Painful Memory

by Cookies_and_Chaos



Category: Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Genre: Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28285857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookies_and_Chaos/pseuds/Cookies_and_Chaos
Summary: Pre-canon. When Alicia and her brothers are turfed out to go and play, they end up finding something that causes an awful lot more trouble than they expected. Written for 12 Days of Christmas, Day 8 — "Eight Gun Barrels"
Comments: 5
Kudos: 3
Collections: 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020





	Uncovered Relics of a Painful Memory

"What is it?" Roger almost clambered over Sam's shoulder to get a better look.

"Maybe it's treasure?" Dick suggested. He had wriggled in between Sam and the tree and was digging with his hands to unearth the rest of the metal.

"Why would there be treasure somewhere like this?" Alicia asked. She leant against the tree, leaving the scrambling in the dirt to her brothers, and pretended not to be as interested as them in what they had found.

"Because no-one would ever look!" Dick said, pulling the object out of the ground. "Got it!"

All three boys stood up and they crowded around Dick. Dick took one look at what he was holding, a revolver, and dropped it.

"Idiot!" Sam quickly scooped the gun back up. "What if it had gone off accidentally?"

"I think it's bunged up with mud," Alicia said, pointing hesitantly at the barrel of the gun. When their outdoor ramble — enforced by their mother, weary of them causing mayhem inside the house — had ended up as an excavation courtesy of Roger tripping over something metal sticking out of the ground, it had all seemed quite exciting. Now Alicia wasn't so sure that they should be holding this gun.

"And bullets can't go through mud?" Sam asked.

"Put it down," Dick wrung his hands and looked to Alicia for support.

"Can I touch it?" Trust Roger to not see the seriousness of all this. Alicia supposed she should cut him some slack on account of his age but, really, six was quite old enough to know when something wasn't right.

"No, you're too little," Sam said. He took his coat off and carefully wrapped it around the gun.

"We should take it home and tell mother and grandpa," Alicia said.

Sam nodded and moved his coat around so that the barrel of the gun faced away from him.

"Must we?" Dick asked, shrinking behind Alicia and peering at Sam as though the gun might go off any moment.

"It's perfectly safe," Alicia reassured him, sounding rather more confident than she felt. After all, she could hardly claim to be an authority on guns.

It was a solemn procession that returned to the house and made their way into the front room.

"I thought I told you four to—"

"Look what we found!" Roger scrambled to open up Sam's coat and in the kerfuffle, the gun clattered to the floor again.

Dick screamed and hid his face against Alicia who flinched herself, mindful of Sam's words that mud might not be enough to stop the gun firing. There was a chilly silence for the briefest of moments and then their mother got to her feet, her face a most peculiar pale hue.

"What in heavens are you doing with that!"

Their mother never raised her voice with them. In all of Alicia's memory, no matter how silly they were being, no matter the prank they had played or the fights they got in with each other, their mother had never shouted. 

"We found it..." Roger's voice grew very small.

"Idiot," Sam muttered, nudging Roger hard.

"That's enough out of you, too. What were you all thinking, touching it? Have I taught you nothing? Are you all so wool-headed that you think playing with guns is a good idea?" Their mother was angrier than Alicia had ever seen her.

"We didn't want to leave it out there in case someone else found it," Sam said. Roger's bottom lip was out now and Alicia knew if they didn't have tears from him, they'd get them from Dick. Normally tears would be fair game for teasing but something about all of this was just so out of character that Alicia couldn't imagine either her or Sam mentioning any tearfulness that came from this.

"Marion," Their grandpa got up from the armchair where he had watched the events unfold and patted his daughter gently on the shoulder. "I think the little ones simply didn't know what to do and brought it to an adult. Like they've been taught."

Grandpa Johns bent down and scooped up the gun carefully, then aimed it to the floor and did something to it. A small cylinder popped out and he nodded to himself.

"No bullets in it. You were never at any risk of harm," he said, smiling in the way grandfathers did when they wanted to calm you down. "Marion, I've left my glasses upstairs. Could you get them for me and I'll sort this out, we'll find where to send it."

Their mother hurried out of the room and Roger and Sam drifted over to get a better look at the gun. Dick scrubbed his face with the sleeve of his jumper and inched over to join them. Leaving Grandpa Johns to talk to the boys, Alicia slipped away upstairs. Something still didn't sit right with her about how her mother had reacted.

The door to her mother's bedroom was open and Alicia peered inside. Marion Johns was sat on the edge of her bed with the photograph that usually sat on her bedside table in her hands. The photograph of their mother and father, taken just after Roger was born.

Alicia wished she remembered him a little better. She had only been four when she saw him last and all those memories were hazy and not really there, not as anything more than spots and specks. She could remember his voice and the way he used to pick Sam up and throw him up in the air and catch him. She remembered how he used to sit and listen to the radio, smiling to himself as one of his favourite musicians came on. Alicia couldn't remember who any of them were, the music in her memories was almost not there, more an idea than any single song she could identify.

She remembered the day the news reached them that her father was never coming home. She didn't really remember the funeral. Just that her blouse had been itchy and it had been too sunny for such an awful day.

The floorboard creaked beneath her foot and her mother looked up.

"Alicia, whatever are you doing?" Back went the photograph and with a quick swipe of a hand, the tears in Marion Johns' eyes were gone.

"I'm sorry we brought the gun here," Alicia said.

"No, Grandpa is right. You did the right thing, I'm sorry I shouted at you. Now, I really must go find Grandpa's glasses." 

With that, Marion swept out of the room and across the landing to Grandpa Johns' room. Alicia padded over to the bedside table and straightened up the photograph, smiling back at the photograph of her father with his pleased-as-punch grin. Maybe one day she would ask her mother or Grandpa about him to fill in the blanks around her scraps of memory.

Just not today.


End file.
